Canada and US to hold tricky NAFTA First Nations Summit in Calgary

MNN Mohawk Nation News, 5 September 1998

The Canadian government is putting on the First Nations NAFTA
International Summit & Trade Show at the Calgary Convention
Centre (Marriott Hotel) on October 17 to 19, 1998.Their prime concerns
are trade relations, creation of an Indigenous trade group, overcoming
possible barriers and opposition, making treaties and laws.

What a line-up of promoters! Selling the North American Free Trade
Agreement will be representatives of the Canadian Government's
Indian Act band councils; premiers of provinces; Jane Stewart, the
apologetic Minister of Indian Affairs; even US UN representative Bill
Richardson; Phil Fontaine head of the Assembly of First Nations, the
main Canadian government financed lobby group; Blaine Favel, the world
ambassador on Indigenous issues; Ron Allen of the US National Congress
of American Indians. Featured is Simon Reisman who made the NAFTA deal
for former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney; Ms. Nina Sibal of the
UNESCO; and Kevin Grover, head of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. The
keynote address will be given by the former Mayor of Atlanta
Georgia. Luminaries from Foreign Affairs and International Trade will
be paneling with some hard core indigenous band council persons such
as Chris Shade, Joe Norton, Marvin Mull, Willie Little Child, Deni
Leonard and Jessie Fisher.

Elijah Harper is billed as Ambassador at Large. The Canadian
government loves him because he promotes his spiritual religious
vision that Aboriginal people do not own the land, in fact,
treaties were visions to live and co-exist with each other and to
share our land and resources .. The land was created by God to
benefit all people.

It looks like the Indigenous representatives are about to sign an
internal NAFTA trade deal on behalf of the Canadian government. It
will look like it's between the Indigenous people of Canada, the
United States, Mexico, Central and South American countries. Actually
it is between Canada and Mexico and Brazil and Nicaragua and=85 get
the picture? The true traditional Indigenous sovereign nations have,
of course, not been consulted on this latest maneuver to sell off
their resources to benefit the multinational corporations who are
behind this whole thing.

Either they've forgotten or don't care. Last February the
traditional Mohawk Nation condemned the human rights violations by
Mexico against those Indians who rebelled against NAFTA, murdering 45
men, women and children in Acteal on December 22nd 1997. On March 16th
they marched to the Kahnawake band council office and presented Joe
Norton with a letter of protest. They were opposing the impending
theft of Iroquois cultural symbols by these nation states for
worldwide marketing, to be made cheaply in labour camps in Oaxaca,
Mexico. As well, Joe Norton and the Canadian government announced at
that time the setting up of a trade commission to oversee the use of
Iroquois cultural symbols and intellectual property so that those
wishing to use their own symbols would have to go through this private
commission. Now it looks like this commission will control all
Indigenous trade.

The question comes up as to what can be done with Indigenous
collaborators who work with oppressive states to undermine Indigenous
peoples' lives, rights and possessions? They are helping Canada
and the US find ways to use NAFTA to exploit and sell off more
Indigenous resources such as oil, gas, forestry, mining, fishery and
agriculture. Rather shouldn't they demand that Canada and the US
boycott trade with Mexico over their human rights violations? The
Mohawk tried to reach their brothers and sisters, the Mayans, to tell
them of their opposition. In fact, real nation-to-nation agreements
are possible between true traditional Indigenous governments similar
to international contracts which must be honoured. Band councils can
only exercise those rights delegated to them by the Canadian
government who created them.

Sovereignty can only be with the true traditional Indian governments.
At a 1977 UN conference, Ross John of the Seneca Nation said, What
do these trade agreements with our nations mean? Is it international
trade, nation to nation? Will it be manipulated by large businesses
and certain nations? If so, all the dollars will go back to
international organizations. Kakwirakeron of the Mohawk Nation
asked, Does the international community and the UN define who a
nation is? Or is it only the U.S. and Canada who make the definition
so that we shall be continually referred to by other states as an
'internal' problem? This is intolerable. Kahn-Tineta Horn
, President of the Canadian Alliance in Solidarity with the Native
Peoples, suggested that, What we need is a structure with a process
where true indigenous nations can make decisions that become
legal. What is the point of this meeting if the government's
policy is to not deal with Indigenous sovereignty?

Is this scheme how Canada and the United States avoids condemning
these states for genocide and human rights violations by getting their
indigenous nominees to go in and do the trading on their behalf?
Dissenters, such as the Zapatistas, have not been invited to give
their views on NAFTA which allows Canada, United States and Mexico and
their business interests to overrule any U.S. and Canadian laws
adopted by any state, tribe, band or local government if they
interfere with investments or sale of services or products by any
multinational corporation. The Zapatistas and other Indigenous people
should give this conference a dose of reality. They should tell these
corporate fronts about the damage to workers, farmers and citizens by
allowing cheap goods from undemocratic countries to come in, resulting
from the murder of labour union and indigenous leaders, the dominance
of extremely corrupt military and paramilitary cliques, and the raw
exploitation of women and children sweatshop workers.

Has the time come to identify those who knowingly work against their
own people and harm them? What did the ancestors do to their spies and
traitors? If they have abandoned us and joined the army of the
opponents, shouldn't they forfeit all their birthrights and claims
on our nation, territory and resources?

SUPPORT INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY. SAY NO TO NAFTA.
Register your opposition:

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